Ted Beale (“Vox Day”) Expelled from SFWA

Some of you are familiar with the writing of Ted Beale (who uses the pen name “Vox Day”). We wrote about one of his creationist rants which had been published at WorldNetDaily — see Darwin, Marx, and Freud: The Evil Threesome. In that post we said:

At the end of the article, Vox is described as “a Christian libertarian opinion columnist” who is a member of “SFWA, Mensa and IGDA.” The first of those we recognize as the Science Fiction Writers of America. Most of us know about Mensa, although few of its members are so tasteless as to publicly brag about membership. The last of those we had to look up — it’s the International Game Developers Association. All in all it’s an intriguing résumé — but writing for WorldNetDaily essentially overwhelms Vox’s other accomplishments.

It now appears that future versions of Vox’s résumé will be lacking one of those memberships. At Locus, “The Website of The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field,” we read: Beale Expelled from SFWA. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:

SF writer Theodore Beale, who blogs as Vox Day, announced that he has been expelled from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. He posted a letter from SFWA President Steven Gould that reads, in part:

One of our clandestine operatives confirms that a communication similar to that is being sent to the SFWA membership. The Locus article continues:

Beale, a lifetime SFWA member who ran unsuccessfully for SFWA president earlier this year, concludes, “I shall attempt to find the wherewithal to soldier on, somehow.”

Our operative recalls that Beale lost the election in something like a 90%-10% voting result. But what did Beale do to merit expulsion? Let’s read on:

In June, Beale used a promotional SFWA Twitter feed, @SFWAauthors, to publish remarks he made on his blog, where he called another author “half-savage” and an editor a “fat frog,” among other inflammatory remarks.

Shocking indeed! Vox has an entry in Wikipedia: Theodore Beale. It hasn’t been updated to mention his unsuccessful run for SFWA president; nor does it yet mention his expulsion. But it does say this:

He presently uses the pen name for a blog – Vox Popoli and (formerly) a weekly opinion column at WorldNetDaily (where his father was formerly a board member) … .

Will this expulsion qualify Beale for the Discoveroids’ list of creationist martyrs who have been Expelled? Probably not. But Vox has nothing to worry about. Although he’s out of SFWA, he’ll always have WorldNetDaily in his résumé.

35 responses to “Ted Beale (“Vox Day”) Expelled from SFWA”

You know, Beale’s generally just a nasty guy. P. Z. Myers and I had a run-in with him sometime back — Beale, or Day, makes wild accusations wholly contrary to history and reality, and gets real snippy when you question him on it.

I think the final straw concerned a case of sexual harassment a few months ago. Beale wasn’t personally involved, but took it upon himself to vilify the complainant. I read some of the stuff, and it was truly vile.

Here are a few lovely bits from the gentleman Vox Day. He is another of the right-wing rape philosophers, and often writes blog posts about how Biblical Christianity is pro-rape.

Vox Day, Rape Philosopher: “I don’t believe I could recommend this as a strategy for most men, but it is surely educational to learn that raping and killing a woman is demonstrably more attractive to women than behaving like a gentleman. …there is absolutely nothing to argue about here. It is an established empirical fact.

I would go so far to argue that if you are being introduced to a woman you find attractive, she will be more attracted to you if you slap her in the face without warning and walk away without explanation than if you smile and tell her that you are very pleased to meet her. Now this, being a mere hypothesis, can be argued. And tested, if you’re feeling especially scientific this weekend.”

Who says creationists can’t do science! Beating women is as scientific as discovering the Higgs boson.

If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry her! It would make no sense whatsoever to marry a woman who believes that being married to her grants her husband no more sexual privilege than the next unemployed musician who happens to catch her eye.

Translation: all women are whores anyway; your wife wants to have sex with a drummer in a rock band, instead of the kind of man she SHOULD want to have sex with, a rape philosopher like Vox Day.

…That the “marital rape” concept is not only legally oxymoronic, but deeply undesirable for both sexes, is exemplified by its implications for sex that by definition precludes consent.

He just defined Biblical Christian marriage as “sex that by definition precludes consent.” What a charmer!

Let’s face it, any man or woman who believes in the criminalization of wake-me-up sex is not an individual with whom any decently hedonistic being would want to be saddled for a lifetime.

Well, a right-wing pig-ignorant anti-science Biblical rape philosopher is not “an individual with whom any decently hedonistic being would want to be saddled for a lifetime”, either.

Vox Day reminds us that giving your wife a roofie and penetrating her anally while she is unconscious is an important part of the Biblical Christian lifestyle.

Right. I guess they were worried about possible litigation, so they didn’t want to encourage Vox by making a public declaration. But when Vox put the news on his own website, Locus apparently felt free to quote his own words.

Beale was expelled, shocking that they were actually able to gather proper justification, not that he didn’t fully deserve it. Tenure comes to mind as well. Let’s turn to the comments following the disclosure of his expulsion. Sue them, are you crying (lol) sue them, those dumb fat pigs, bankrupt them, I’m sure you’re heartbroken (laughs) when are you going to sue them……..I think I stopped reading after about 25 or so, but not much substance, other than a cpl rants like what he was kicked out for.

anevilememe says:
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the notion of a person being a creationist fundie AND a SF writer”

Actually SF writing is a coping technique taught to new students at all the best fundie seminaries. Keeps them from hanging out at bar rooms and pool halls, and dribbling tobacco juice on their shirts.

This is the guy whom a real sci-fi author, John Scalzi, affectionately calls the “Racist Sexist Homophobic Dips___”. Apparently, RSHD picked a fight then found out that he was having a battle of wits unarmed against a super-genius. Suffice to say that the amount of narcissism this guy has will mean that he will see all of this as a conspiracy against his superior talents and intellect, rather than realizing, “Man, I was truly an idiot.”

Beale was expelled, shocking that they were actually able to gather proper justification, not that he didn’t fully deserve it.

Not really – the way the SFWA by-laws were written, an unanimous decision by the Officers to expel anyone could be “for good and sufficient cause”. They didn’t need justification – whatever they said was the reason would do.

VD, idiot that he is, switches between crowing that he’s showing how dictatorial the SFWA is by showing how they can expel anyone for any reason, and whimpering that he’s a-gonna sue because they didn’t have a good reason because other people were also rude and it’s not fair mommy… – I think it depends on which voices are speaking in his head that day.

“Not really-the way the SFWA by-laws were written……whatever they said was the reason will do.”
I wanted to say fair enough but…….The Board did cover their bases anyway,showing at least consideration that unanimously we said so isn’t enough. I’m also surprised that seeing as how much anyone could already “get away with” under the Writer’s Laws,that Beale wasn’t either just forcing them to boot him,or arrogant enough to think they wouldn’t.

How in the name of Asimov did that racist sexist homophobic dips*** ever get 10% of the vote!?

From other discussions which have leaked from the SFWA, it seems there was dissatisfaction with the way Scalzi & the board were running things, and Gould was seen as perpetuating the same policies. (The details are murky, but relate to the SFWA’s relationship with publishers, distributors, Amazon.com, and self-published writers—some of whom are earning many times more than traditionally-published SFWA mid-listers, and who should be recognized as professional writers, but aren’t.)

VD was a protest vote, I gather. He couldn’t (so the argument ran) have done much harm of his own wont against the board’s opposition, but neither could they against his. Additionally, his stated platform (at http://voxday.blogspot.com/2013/01/sfwa-platform-first-five-points.html) is… not insane or even obviously bad; I imagine some agreed with it and were willing to put up with a $#!^#3@& to have these issues raised.

Joel Salomon says: “self-published writers—some of whom are earning many times more than traditionally-published SFWA mid-listers, and who should be recognized as professional writers, but aren’t.”

That would be a major break with SFWA policy. As I understand it, membership has always required being published by recognized (i.e. paying) magazines or book publishers. I think one professionally published novel will get you in, or a few (three or more?) short stories in known SF magazines. They only want professional writers. Nothing in fanzines or from a vanity press is considered. (I donno about creating fantasy games — maybe that stuff counts too.) Anyway, it’s hard to imagine that with every member having met those qualifications, they would suddenly open up their ranks to … just anyone. If that was one of Vox’s issues, I doubt that it would have won him a single vote.

Dunno; seems to me someone who earns enough with his writing to pay the rent and buy groceries is a professional whether self-published or traditionally-published. At the end of the day, it’s readers who decide whose books are worth buying.

Put it this way: the platform I linked to may be good ideas or bad; I don’t know enough about the field to judge—but they’re not crazy or evil ideas, either. For all his crackpottery, VD was presenting as a legitimate candidate; and those looking for a way to protest the current direction of the SFWA used him that way.

The point’s well taken; the trouble is that the other 99% of self-published authors don’t merit SFWA eligibility. Where would you draw the line without inordinate acrimony?

In practice, of course, the other route to SFWA eligibility — through having published a handful of short stories (I forget how many) in a market that pays 5c a word or more — would seem to solve the problem. If a self-published author has never made a professional short-story sale, chances are that you’re not missing much.

(It’s not infallible, of course. Titans like Cordwainer Smith and RA Lafferty apparently often had difficulties selling their stories.)

The SFWA report is available to read on Beale’s web site. It names him, and is pretty clear about why he was expelled (confirming the “Racist” and “Sexist” part of his nickname).http://www.voxday.net/mart/SFWA_report.pdf

I read that report from the SFWA. In context, “half-savage” was pretty racist, and clearly intended to be racist by Beale, as he clarified that he did in fact refer to the target’s primitive, inferior race. What a gentleman.

Did I read this correctly, Day thrown out for referring disparagingly to a couple of authors, one of whom routinely calls Day a racist homophobic dipsh*t? And you see the balance somehow in maligning other successful real authors because you despise their religious beliefs and are not too proud to say so in the same breath you condemn Day for maligning authors?
Your mothers must be so proud.

Curtis asks: “Did I read this correctly, Day thrown out for referring disparagingly to a couple of authors, one of whom routinely calls Day a racist homophobic dipsh*t?”

No “Curtis”, you did NOT read that correctly– indeed, your straw-man version of the reason why SFWA disinfected VD from their organization is precisely the type of “long string of straw men, ad hominems and false dichotomies” that is eternally employed by VD’s supporters. It’s tiring, but we must talk to you as if you are 4.

VD was not disinfected because it “wrote disparagingly”, and you know that. The SFWA needed an inoculation from VD because it wrote a racist blog post attacking another author for her race, using standard white supremacist arguments. Beale has often embraced supremacist ideas of non-white genetic inferiority.

On that OP, one of VD’s ditto-heads, many of whom hate women with a purple passion and encourage violence against them, threatened to gang-rape (“run a train”) on the black female target. AFTER that threat was made, VD published the whole OP, threat attached, to the SFWA Twitter feed. VD deletes many comments for many reasons– he will delete your comment if you don’t call him “God’s voice”, Vox Day– but he sure didn’t delete the rape threat– and evidence shows he read it.

Ted Beale and his ditto-heads have a history of promoting violence against women, the more grotesque the better. He defended the Taliban practice of splashing acid in the faces of young girls who try to go to school, on the grounds that maiming little girls makes women submissive, thus making the world into an Ozzie and Harriet, right wing Utopia of “stability”. Ted Beale likewise defends cutting up the clitorises and labia of little girls, for the same reason: right wing Utopianism.

Ted Beale threatened to publish other authors’ home addresses, thus facilitating violence, and in the past Beale had in fact published his targets’ home addresses.

Ted Beale also wrote that if he thought his God told him to murder all children under the age of 2, he would murder all toddlers.

There are good reasons to take Ted Beale’s threats seriously, and dismiss the Rush Limbaugh “No my fascism was SATIRE” defense. VD should be disinfected.

I notice that you don’t provide any links to some of those claims: that he defended throwing acid in the face of young girls, for example. I’ve read his blog, a bit, but that seems over the top, even for him.

That said, he has made a number of statements that I personally find odious. Including the post in which he attacks NK Jemisin. Of course she and John Scalzi and others have been pretty rude and abusive toward him, as well. I disagree with Vox’s views on a whole lot of things, including race and evolution. And I certainly think it was rude of him to refer to a well-respected SF editor as a “fat frog” and make obnoxious comments about her (lack of) physical attractiveness.

But I think it’s wrong for a professional organization to expel a member because they disagree with the content of his speech, and that does seem to be what has happened here. Even if all the things you claim about him are true, I don’t think they’re relevant.

3. How does throwing acid in their faces when they demand independence from men benefit women?

His answer is:3. Because female independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills. Using the utilitarian metric favored by most atheists, a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability. If PZ has turned against utilitarianism or the concept of the collective welfare trumping the interests of the individual, I should be fascinated to hear it.

Ted Beale: I… predicted that Breivik’s action would eventually be seen as a harbinger of Norway’s belated move towards the ethnic nationalism that is sweeping across most of Europe…. it will not be terribly surprising if Anders Breivik is one day revered by Norwegians for his murderous stand against the invaders and quislings of his homeland.

The “invaders and quislings” Breivik murdered were mostly children. Beale knows they were, but he redefines them as “not children.”

Nearly every historical national hero murdered more children than Breivik did. More importantly, the “children” were political enemies working towards the destruction of Breivik’s nation, they weren’t innocent little kids.

See that? Beale put “children” in scare quotes! So that makes murdering them OK!

I have far more sympathy for the bureaucrats he blew up in Oslo than the Quisling Youth he shot on the island camp.

His commenters (mostly) strongly support killing those kids, and one guy starts praising Hitler.

Zippy says: “But I think it’s wrong for a professional organization to expel a member because they disagree with the content of his speech”

Um, threats and harassment aren’t protected speech. He didn’t just argue that, say, women are not so smart, or blacks are intellectually inferior. He made these comments in the process of targeting a black women and other women in the organization. He and his ditto-heads hate all non-submissive women, constantly mock their weight and looks, and threaten them violence.

As you say, it’s a professional organization, and you can’t be professional when you’re using the organization’s resources to publish threats and racial and sexual harassment.

I read 60-70 science fiction books each year, and I’d never even heard of Ted Beale, so it doesn’t seem as if the SFWA will be missing much.

@ Curmudgeon and JG: Yes; the entrance requirements are either one professionally published novel, or three professionally published pieces of short fiction; they have a list of approved venues that qualify.

Vox Day is not Vox Dei, FYI. The translation seems to be for Beale’s pseudonym to be ‘Voice of the Day’.

Ayn Rand was the founder of her own religion. Now, I kinda like her, but she was kinda crazy, yet a useful crazy. Without her, we might be saluting the Sickle and Hammer every morning.

Scalzi as Real SF Author, well yes, but as a Good One? Not so much. I read OMW, and some of Redshirts. He has good ideas, but he seriously needs to develop them more. Thankfully we have dozens of new and interesting authors appearing on the Net.

As to Seefwahwah’s actions, well, I’m pretty much a Free Speech Absolutist. And I would think that a Science Fiction group would be dedicated to pushing the boundaries. John Campbell, who was a boundary pusher par excellence (and in many ways I did not like) would be embarrassed to be associated with this taboo-ridden gutless mess.

I’m closing the comments here, because I didn’t intend for this thread to become either a Vox-bashing or Vox-defending arena. He’s a creationist (which we already knew) and now he’s been expelled from SFWA. That’s the news. If you think the life of Vox deserves more discussion, you can probably find somewhere else to carry on.

This blog's RSS feed link:

Search for:

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Commenting Rules

Creationists should read the rules before posting any comments. See Comment Rules.

Here's how to use the available codes. Note that codes are used in pairs, to turn the effect on and then off again. Please don’t start one of these codes without closing it:

For italics:

<em>text</em>

For bold:

<strong>text</strong>

For strikethrough:

<del>text</del>

For blockquotes:

<blockquote>this will appear both indented and in italics</blockquote>